News

Charity jump after a miracle recovery

Grateful Martin Dickinson will perform a skydive to raise money for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance, which helped saved his grandmother’s life.

The Gazette told the story last week about Mr Dickinson’s gran Carol Brothers, 63, of Easterton, who survived against the odds after her heart stopped beating for 45 minutes.

Mrs Brothers had suffered a cardiac arrest after returning home from a shopping trip with her daughter Maxine Dickinson on February 1.

Paramedics restarted her heart after 45 minutes by performing CPR and using a defibrillator, and Mrs Brothers was flown by the Wiltshire Air Ambulance to the Royal United Hospital, Bath, After three days without regaining consciousness and tests showed minimal brain activity, doctors at the hospital said the kindest thing to do was to withdraw medication and Mrs Brothers was put on the pathway to die.

But three days after that she woke up and began talking, and three weeks later she was discharged from hospital.

Mr Dickinson, 20, an apprentice electrician of Ryeleaze, Potterne, has decided to make a parachute jump in aid of the Wiltshire Air Ambulance.

He said: “What the air ambulance does is incredible. They have to raise all their money themselves, which I think is wrong. There are people out there who are sponging off the benefits system while the Wiltshire Air Ambulance is scrimping and saving to pay for the helicopter.”

Mr Dickinson’s tandem parachute jump will take place at Netheravon on July 21. He has put a sponsor form up at his workplace, Base Electrical Services in Devizes, and other forms are circulating in Potterne. He wants to raise at least £500.

Donations can also be made by visiting http://www.justgiving.

com/Martin-Dickinson3 Mr Dickinson, a former Lavington School pupil, said he was still struggling to comprehend his gran’s recovery.

He said: “I went to see her in hospital two days after the doctors withdrew medications. I said goodbye to her and told her I would see her on the other side. She was asleep and peaceful.

“The next day I got a phone call to say she had woken up. It was a bit too much to process – saying goodbye to her 36 hours earlier and going back to say hello. It’s unbelievable.”